Given everything we've done to promote exceptional, ethically-sourced coffee in these parts you'd think that the item that "WOWs" most people would be the coffee.
And you'd be wrong.
There has been no award-winning coffee, no signature beverage, no nothing over the past 6.5 years that has elicited the number of "OMG that's unbelievable!!!!" responses as Melanie's chocolate chip cookies.
Since she started making them a year or so ago, we've gone from selling one tray a day to three or four trays for the shop in addition to taking phone orders for a dozen or more for parties and holidays.
A lot of folks come in and beg for the recipe. Melanie isn't talking. What we will say is that when they go into the oven they're more than a quarter pound each. There's butter, flour, sugar, chocolate chips.
And magic.
We don't know if there's a "Best Chocolate Chip Cookie In Pittsburgh" category in any of the local food polls, but if there is, we think we'll get more than a few votes.
Now, if we could get Mt. Lebanon as excited about coffee as cookies, we'd really have something...
Well, you could always sandwich a take-no-prisoners espresso buttercream between two of those cookies. You know, a Trojan-horse strategy.
Posted by: Tom Moertel | August 16, 2011 at 08:26 PM
I am going to do a comparison between Melanie's cookie and those from Nancy's bakery in Homestead. Those are supposedly the best CCC's in the 'burgh.
Posted by: Larry Watson | September 02, 2011 at 12:29 AM